EE603

UNIT 1
INTRODUCTION TO
INTEGRATED CIRCUIT
Prepared by Azhani binti Hashim

The History of the Integrated

Circuit
The world full of Integrated Circuit
(IC).
Examples : ??
An electric circuit is made from
different electrical components such
as transistors, resistors, capacitors
and diodes, that are connected to
each other in different ways. Which
one is the most important?

Transistor Evolution
Transistor is the most important
one for the development of modern
computers.
Before, engineers had to use
vacuum tubes.
The replacement due to:
generates a lot of heat and has a
tendency to burn out.
Slow, big and bulky.

Transistor Evolution

The first digital computer ENIAC was a huge

monster that weighed over thirty tons, and
consumed 200 kilowatts of electrical power. It
had around 18,000 vacuum tubes that constantly
burned out, making it very unreliable.

Transistor Evolution
When transistor invented?
Who created it?

Transistor Evolution
Tyranny of Numbers

With
the
small
and
effective
transistor, constructing advanced
circuits more easier than before.
Advanced circuits brings complex
and more component. Resulting
problem
in
size,
speed
and
construction.
Solution: Monolithic by Jack Kibly.

Transistor Evolution
Monolithic was to make all the components
and the chip out of the same block (monolith)
of semiconductor material.
By making all the parts out of the same block
of material and adding the metal needed to
connect them as a layer on top of it:
no more for individual discrete components.
no more wires and components had to be
assembled manually.
the circuits could be made smaller.
the manufacturing process could be automated.

MOSFET History
The first MOSFET transistor was
invented at Canada in 1925 and England
in 1935.
PMOS in 1960s and mostly used in
calculators.
NMOS in 1970s and mostly used in
(4004, 8008 microprocessor) for speed.
CMOS in 1980s is the preferred
MOSFET technology because of power
benefit.

COST OF INTEGRATED CIRCUIT

Total cost of can be separated
into two components:
Variable cost (recurring expenses)

Cost that is directly attributable to a

manufactured
product
and
hence
propotional to product volume.
Examples : cost of the part used in the
product, assembly cost, testing cost ,
design time and effort

COST OF INTEGRATED CIRCUIT

Fixed cost (non-recurring expenses)

Effort in time and manpower it takes to

produce the design.
Influenced by the complexity of the
design, the aggressiveness of the
specifications, and the productivity of
the designer.
Indirect cost R&D, manufacturing
equipment, marketing, sales and building
infrastructure.

COST OF INTEGRATED CIRCUIT

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Noise

In digital circuit, it means unwanted

variations of voltages and currents at
the logic nodes.

Three noise source

Wire noise

i. Inductive coupling noise

ii. Capacitive coupling noise

power supply noise and ground noise

expressed in volt and ampere.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Noise source (wire noise)

two wires placed side by side in an

integrated circuit form a coupling
capacitor and a mutual inductance.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Noise source (power supply noise)

Noise on the power and ground rails

of a gate also influences the signal
levels in the gate.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Voltage Transfer Characteristic
(inverter)
high nominal voltage

low nominal
voltage

Mathematical function :
VOH = f(VOL)
VOL = f(VOH)
VM = f(VM)

Gate / Switching threshold voltage

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Voltage Transfer Characteristic

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Noise Margin

For a gate to be robust and insensitive to

noise disturbances, it is essential that the
0 and 1 intervals be as large as
possible.
measure of the sensitivity of a gate to
noise is given by the noise margins NML
(noise margin low) and NMH (noise margin
high).
Noise margin is the ability to overpower
the noise.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Noise Margin

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Noise Margin

A large noise margin is a desirable, but not sufficient

requirement. Assume that a signal is disturbed by
noise and differs from the nominal voltage levels. As
long as the signal is within the noise margins, the
following gate continues to function correctly,
although its output voltage varies from the nominal
one.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Noise Immunity

expresses the ability of the system

to process and transmit information
correctly in the presence of noise.
Why most digital circuits have very
good noise immunity?
noise immunity is the ability to reject the
noise source.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Directivity

The directivity property requires a gate to be

unidirectional, that is, changes in an output level
should not appear at any unchanging input of the
same circuit. If not, an output-signal transition
reflects to the gate inputs as a noise signal, affecting
the signal integrity.
In real gate implementations, full directivity can
never be achieved. Some feedback of changes in
output levels to the inputs cannot be avoided.
Capacitive coupling between inputs and outputs is a
typical example of such a feedback. It is important to
minimize these changes so that they do not affect the
logic levels of the input signals.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Fan-out

The fan-out denotes the

number of load gates N
that are connected to the
output of the driving gate.
Increasing the fan-out of a
gate can affect its logic
output levels.
Propagation delay, rise
time and fall time affected
by the fan-out due to
larger capacitance loads.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Fan-in

fan-in of a gate is
defined as the number
of inputs to the gate.
Gates with large fanin tend to be more
complex, which often
results
in
inferior
static and dynamic
properties.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
Ideal gate
properties:
infinite gain in the transition
region.
gate threshold located in the
middle of the logic swing.
with high and low noise margins
equal to half the swing.
Input impedances are infinity.
Output impedances and zero.

FUNCTIONALITY AND
ROBUSTNESS
NMOS inverter of the 1970s.

The observed transfer characteristic, obviously, is far from ideal: it is

asymmetrical, has a very low value for NML, and the voltage swing of
3.05 V is substantially below the maximum obtainable value of 5 V
(which is the value of the supply voltage for this design).

QUESTIONS
What is VM, VOH, VOL?

QUESTIONS
Noise margin is the ability to
_____________ the ______. But noise
immunity is the ability to _______
the ________.
Properties of ideal gate is:
Input impedances are ________.
Output impedances and _______.

PERFORMANCE
Propagation Delays

The propagation delay t of a gate

defines how quickly it responds to a
change at its input(s).
It expresses the delay experienced by
a signal when passing through a gate.
It is measured between the 50%
transition points of the input and
output waveforms.
p

PERFORMANCE
Propogation delays

PERFORMANCE
Propagation delays

tpLH defines the response time of the

gate for a low to high (or positive)
output transition, while tpHL refers to
a high to low (or negative) transition.
The propagation delay tp is defined
as the average of the two.

Propagation delay and power

consumption
The propagation delay is mostly
determined by the speed at which a
given amount of energy can be stored
on the gate capacitors. The faster
the energy transfer (or the higher the
power consumption), the faster the
gate is. A faster energy transfer
requires a higher power consumption
which resulted in a faster gate
operation.

PERFORMANCE
Rise time & fall time
Rise time is the time
required for the logic signal
to rise from 10% to 90%.
Fall time is the time
required for the logic signal
to rise from 90% to 10%.

PERFORMANCE
Power and energy consumption

The power consumption of a design

determines how much energy is consumed
per operation.
Factors : power-supply capacity, battery
lifetime, supply-line sizing, packaging and
cooling requirement.
Three types of power dissipation:
Peak power : supply-line sizing.
Instantanenous power : power-supply capacity.
Average power : cooling and battery requirement.

 Power consumption determines

heat
dissipation
and
energy
consumption
Power influences design decisions:
packaging and cooling
width of supply lines
power-supply capacity
# of transistors integrated on a single chip

 Propagation delay is related to power consumption

tp determined by speed of charge transfer
fast charge transfer => fast gate
fast gate => more power consumption
CMOS technology:
No path exists between VDD and VSS in

steady state
No static power consumption! (ideally)
Main reason why CMOS replaced NMOS